Shout is finally re-releasing the old Rhino sets! Volume 1 of Mst3K comes out on September 1st. $45 MSRP - but it looks to just be a regular DVD case - thus we lose the uniformity of all the previous sets / the great artwork (hopefully the menus aren't cheapened either). Boo. The films are:

Catalina Caper
Creeping Terror
Bloodlust
Skydivers

In good news, they have new bonus material:

NEW The Crown Jewels featurette
NEW The Creeping Terror trailer
NEW Extended trailer for The Creep Behind the Camera
NEW The Creep Behind the Camera Q&A with Frank Conniff and Trace Beaulieu at Screamfest 2014
Theatrical trailers for Catalina Caper, Bloodlust and The Skydivers

Teenage Caveman made for one of the most interesting (and funny) of that early 2000s spate of AIP remakes too. Who would have thought that Larry Clark would be the perfect director for a film in which a group of uncouth and empty-headed, but strangely salon-ready buxom and beefcake, kids ignore their grubby caveman parents and the apocalypse around them in order to laze around a hangout in their underwear, take drugs, fight and have sex before all succumbing to STDs?

I have all of these sets, but I'm still glad this is happening- even if it means mine are becoming theoretically less valuable as a result (and I had to pay like $150 for one of them.) I do hope they'll get back the rights to the Godzilla movies sooner or later, or else the original release of Vol 10 is going to get more and more irritatingly out of reach.

I really hope they include the Blockbuster Review as a bonus feature or something in the future as I'm not going to play the rush &wait game to see if I'm one of the first 1000. Its like those people who camp out in front of a new Chick-fil-a hoping to get some free sandwich coupons.

Per a comment on the page, they'll update the listing when they're past the first thousand, so I went ahead and placed an order- I'm essentially paying $20 extra for the bonus disc, but I can live with that.

420- THE HUMAN DUPLICATORS
705- ESCAPE 2000
817- HORROR OF PARTY BEACH
819- INVASION OF THE NEPTUNE MEN

This will complete the foreshortened season 7 and leave two episodes from each of seasons 4 and 8 left unreleased. There are only like 16 or 17 (depending on whether you count the VHS only The Amazing Colossal Man) to go- which is to say, maybe two sets before Shout! really starts getting into the Diabolik and Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster kind of titles that have potentially impossible rights snafus involved.

mfunk9786 wrote:Horror of Party Beach is one of my personal favorites, and I seem to recall that Michael J Nelson shares the sentiment.

My favorite MST3Ks are either the outdated teen movies -- things like this episode and the underrated Catalina Caper, which I know many fans hate but really feels to me like sharing a joint and casually watching a movie with Joel and the bots -- or the completely incompetent Hal Warren/Coleman Francis/Creeping Terror material.

I've slacked on collecting these DVDs in recent years (to be honest, I cashed in when the Rhinos were getting valuable when money was tight for me), but I really want to dip back in at some point. I'm amazed at how far Shout! has gotten in releasing basically the entire series.

I still wish Shout would've given the Rhino set reduxes regular editions rather than these bargain basement versions with minimal extras and no interesting packaging. The menus / covers /extras are half the fun.